Sunday, November 15, 2009

There are many different ways for training Zhan Zhuang in different martial arts. Some focus more on imagination as a process for discovering the feeling, others more as a Zen meditation, and others still as an endurance or structural practice. There are many different flavors of Zhan Zhuang or standing meditation practices.

In Wujifa, (without going into the philosophy of the triangles) Zhan Zhuang is first practiced to discover structure, then connection. This is a very functional place to begin, as it calibrates the body and the mind to be able to work with more advanced practices.

In many martial arts, what is considered basic training in one art is considered to be the secrets in another. For example, one martial art may have the practitioner working with a weapon, because he’s not ready yet to engage in hand to hand combat. In another martial art, they might say the person’s not ready for a weapon until they can work empty-handed. In Wujifa, weapons are seen as an extension of the body, and/or tools for calibrating the structure.

Wujifa practice’s first focus is to get the body functional within a certain basic structure. When one first starts working with stance and structure, they may notice how the mind wanders, and the method of structure is a way of starting to engage intent of the alignment of the body. After one starts to make fascial connections and can maintain a good relaxed, balanced structure as an intention and as a physical practice, additional mental focuses can be engaged in a more practical way with the kinesthetic experience gained from practicing the structural intent.

The common mistake when people engage in various mental aspects is to only imagine leaving behind the function of structure. By focusing on the structure first, the imagined connections become less subjective in the sense that the physical responses of a connected aligned body will be verifiable. It is always important to verify the results one is getting lest one’s mind drift off into a fantasy world and that person becomes unable to produce any physical results or applications.

Another issue with many arts is only to work on the physical, and they forget to bring along the mind. We start by engaging the mind for the beginner in seeking the feeling. This feeling is the fundamental process of true Wujifa practice. Once one gets to this stage, noticing the intention and how this is engaged with the body takes one to the next level.